From BookWorks:
You have heard over and over from experts and read online how important your front cover is. It is true. How your cover looks is even more important that what you write inside the book. Because if your cover is not terrific, then no one will ever know how brilliant your writing is. It is the front cover’s job to convince a potential reader to flip the book over and read the back cover. It is the job of the book back cover to convince a reader to flip open a book and read a few pages.
. . . .
Our job as authors/publishers is to convince readers that our books are wonderful. The back cover is one of our best tools to do that. Too often, we try to get EVERYTHING we want to say about ourselves and our books onto the back cover. We cram too many words into too small of a space and when we want to get it to fit, we shrink the text size. That is not how to entice someone into reading your back cover copy. Think about how magazines use space and headlines and large font sizes to lure their readers in. We should be emulating those same practices.Before you write that back cover copy, ask yourself the following questions:
1 – Does your Bio and picture NEED to be on the back cover? Are your bio and picture going to convince someone that your book is terrific?
2 – Do YOU read tons of text, in small type, smashed together with no line spacing to give your eyes a break? Or do your eyes gloss over the words?
3 – Do you read headlines on Magazines, Newspapers, and Online?
Link to the rest at BookWorks
If I pull a book from the shelf, look at the back cover, and there’s nothing but a huge picture of the author’s face staring at me, it goes back on the shelf. Even though there’s a strong temptation to simply drop it on the floor.
If I look at the back cover, and the majority of the text is trying to sell me some *other* book(s) by the same author, it goes back on the shelf.
If the back cover is entirely or mostly generic blurbs from people or publications telling me how great the book is, it goes back on the shelf.
If it’s printed in faint spidery text over a riotous color scheme, it goes back on the shelf.
The purpose of the back cover blurb is to TELL ME SOMETHING ABOUT THE BOOK. If you fail to do that, you not only lose a sale, you annoyed me as well. Which isn’t going to help your chances of selling your next attempt to me.
“If I look at the back cover, and the majority of the text is trying to sell me some *other* book(s) by the same author, it goes back on the shelf.”
“If the back cover is entirely or mostly generic blurbs from people or publications telling me how great the book is, it goes back on the shelf.”
These are some major pet peeves of mine, so it is great to know there is someone out there who feels the same.